The Broken Bones - A Short Story

[George]

CHAPTER 1

 

I remember it like it was yesterday. That's what they say don't they? Only it's far from yesterday; a distant memory and another me.

 

It was 15th January of 1988 - a Friday much like today, overcast and indistinguishable from any other Friday. Except it was the day I got the keys to my first car, a slightly beat up white Datsun which dad and I were going to fix up.

 

Faith was blaring on the radios having just nudged Rick Astley on the charts, my sister was threatening to run away to be with Johnny after seeing Dirty Dancing three days in a row and my dad had a not-so-secret cocaine habit that was to mark our lives.

 

But if you asked me, life was perfect and the summer of ’88 was mine to devour with all the hunger only an 18 year old can possess. School was behind me, I owned my freedom in the sleek form of a Datsun, I couldn't list a single responsibility and I acted like I would live forever - which happens to be a long time when you're 18.

 

#

 

It's a shorter string at 49. Hazel says I'm trying to relive my youth looking for a Datsun. She poked fun when I brought up the idea.

 

She'd throw a test jab, 'Registration for those rusty coffins costs too much.' Then follow through with a solid right, 'You're not 16 anymore, you should be spending more time with your son.' And finally draw blood with an uppercut, 'They'll laugh at you, they'll point in the streets and laugh. “Look”, they'll say. “That’s Hazel’s husband driving his midlife crisis”’.

 

We sparred when it was an idea. The day I found a car... an all out brawl broke out; a rumble in the kitchen. Ali could take a beating but he didn't have to dodge punches below the belt. Like him though I weathered the fury and last Tuesday shook hands with the former owner of a 1970 Datsun 240Z. I'll tell you about it some day, when there are stories to tell.

 

For now, while I wait for my estranged father to visit and for my youth to arrive on the back of a tow truck, let me recollect some of my adolescence for you.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

At 18 I had all the answers and my life was a few bullet points in a well aged square notepad:

• Make out with Cindy

• Jump the Broken Bones

• Move out to a rad beach house with Derek

• Blow the economics course (who wants to be like dad anyway!)

 

If I wrote one today it would look like this:

• Watch a full game of football

• Go fishing instead of the fish store

• Go 24 hours without hearing Hazel's voice

 

One might say I've lowered the bar but I would argue that one does not know Hazel. It is possible to eventually go fishing and to see a game of football without interruptions but the last one is realistically a ten year goal. At some stage during the last five years her voice changed from human to nails-on-a-chalkboard. There is no history of it in my family but I can still hope to go deaf in my old age.

 

Cindy, on the other hand, had a sweet voice which made all the birds, and all the boys, pause mid-song and pay attention. For our final school year it was a requirement to take one arts class. Despite my total lack of rhythm I took music to be near Cindy.

 

I was often found in the back of class looking disoriented like a coma patient having just come to and my only lucid moments were spent admiring my crush. She, on the other hand, was the model student and could play a handful of instruments - including, according to rumours I desperately ignored, one owned by our very own music teacher.

 

#

 

From my little brown notebook the only goal I could have realistically achieved was jumping the Broken Bones with my BMX. It was a hill taller than five men with a thorny weed to one side and a somewhat soft landing, if you fancy dirt as soft, to the other. Some of the older boys named it Broken Bones because it was near the site of an archaeological dig the local university students used from time to time. No one had actually jumped the hill and thus no one had broken any bones there. I was planning on being the first.

 

I all but set a date for the jump that summer. My name was going to be written in the hall of fame - either that or the medical files at the local hospital. Cindy was of course invited to sing to my triumph, my bravery. Later I would double her on my BMX to the arcades and shout everyone their games for the rest of the day.

 

#

 

No one jumped the hill that summer or the next. Two years later, on another Friday as it happens, with a setting sun as my only witness I did jump the Broken Bones. My name was not written in any halls, the kids at the arcades had to pay for their own games and Cindy did not belt out sweet music in my honour.

 

Instead, another Cindy faintly shouted about girls just wanting to have fun through the speakers in my Datsun. My chest heaved. A mangled mess of crushed metal imprisoned me. Sparkling pockets of light reflected off broken glass all around me and a chill spread throughout my body as Cindy mercifully faded along with the light of the setting sun.

 

 

CHAPTER 3

 

The night I jumped the Broken Bones my father was spending his first night in prison. Someone pointed it out to me many years later - the irony. My father behind iron bars; me trapped in a mess of metal. I never did look back and laugh about it.

 

My recollection of the night is sparse. Cold, sweating. Angry at my father, at the car, the pain. A quarter moon my only light, salty blood, frogs, spiders…

Spiders.

 

#

 

Apart from my father and I the local huntsmen spiders loved the Datsun. They would come from miles away to hitch a ride. A week wouldn't pass where I didn't encounter one scurrying away when I opened the door. Sometimes I would spot a pair of legs sticking out of the cowl cover slits just like a prisoner dangling their limbs outside their cage. I never thought of it that way - not with my innocence at the time. That picture would be painted much later by my father.

 

For a while I would hunt the hunters. How dare they hitch free rides in my car. I tried surface sprays and car covers without joy and I tried washing it regularly but grew tired of that in no time.

 

Working on the car one weekend a particularly large adult bolted from underneath the battery tray. I think he must have been drinking the spilt battery acid because he was big enough to battle our cat! In desperation, and to some measure fright, I took the car to Marrickville where they were building a block of units. I drove it through the rough construction site bouncing and shaking back and forth until my teeth stung. I imagined the neighbourhood spiders flying off the car and running away from this possessed lunatic never to return. The only difference I noticed was a slowly leaking tyre. Eventually I tried ignoring them. That worked best.

My sister refused to get in the car because of the spiders. She didn't want to be anywhere near it when one of them finally pounced on me while I was driving.

'You'll kill an old lady in a Cortina', she was all too fond of saying.

 

You know she was wrong. It wasn't a spider or a Cortina that ended my Datsun; my innocence. It was a pair of dangling arms in a cage.

 

#

 

His habit snuck up on him and turned into a controlling addiction. I refuse to make excuses for him but deep inside I want to believe that he had no choice but to steal money from his employer. Lots of money.

 

It didn’t take long for them to catch him. At the time it felt like we were the ones being punished, my sister and I. Our mother was a wound time was slowly healing and now dad was a fresh cut.

 

I lashed out by destroying the car we had spent two years restoring; the bond we nurtured. Maybe I shouldn’t have been inside the car when I did it. My intentions were… unformed when the hill came into view and it was just easier to leave my foot on the accelerator.

 

#

 

A kid found me the following day. It took months but my body mended. It has been almost three decades and our relationship is yet to heal.

 

Yesterday the car arrived. It’s beat up and needs lots of work. This morning my father arrived. We’re working on it.

 

[Retro Z]

Wow!. Tragic yet such a beautiful story. Keep us updated on how the story unfolds..all the best 

 

PS. You should write novals..you have a talent.

[DreamZproject]

Wow, what a story!

 

I really couldn't stop reading... WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!??!?!

[gav240z]

More importantly, is it a true story?

[Mr Camouflage]

More importantly, is it a true story?

 

Slight maths error if it is. 18 in 1988, you'd only be 44 today. Maybe its set in 2019?

 

[George]

Well picked up, it's a fictional story. The current date was never established so it's set as you calculated. I liked the '80's setting and I wanted the protagonist to seek out a Datsun in part due to a mid-life crisis so I had to set it in the future to make it work.

 

Thanks for the kinds words. There is no plan to write more so what happens next is what you make of it. The ending suggests a reconciliation with the father with another Datsun project as per their '80's one. They repair their relationship by repairing the Datsun.

 

I had planned on writing a longer story but didn't like the characters enough so I edited it just for the sake of completing the story.

[Mr Camouflage]

I had a 240Z back in high school. Graduated in 1988, and am currently 42, so it was easy to spot.

 

Spent about 2 or 3 years working on that car, to the detriment of my school work.  My Dad was an ex-mechanic so advice was always at hand if I needed it, but I was the type to want to figure it out myself and asking for help was always the last resort.  Although my Dad was no coke addict and I didn't end up crashing my car into a hill.

 

[Karljsw]

Wow this is a cool story you should definitely write more!!

[PB260Z]

That was a nice read, and can I relate to some parts of it.